Ladies and gentlemen… start your engines. With a tentative labor deal being reached, attention has now shifted towards free agency as teams prepare for what could become one of the most hectic, exciting and hopefully unforgettable periods of movement in NBA history. Teams need to make up for lost time, and what better way than to get your star player recruiting on Twitter? This weekend Kevin Durant tweeted at veteran free agent Shane Battier: Hey @ShaneBattier, just wanted to see how you were doing and what size jersey you wear and also do u still want no.31? Battier responded: @KDTrey5 yes #31 is preferable and it’s true that I enjoy OKC steakhouses. And @nickcollison4 is my boy. Hmmmm……big selling points. That should get your juices flowing for the season to start – players schmoozing players, guys using anything in their power to get a leg up on the competition, shamelessly trying to assemble a roster capable of winning a championship. And you gotta love KD’s Calipari-esque techniques, offering up jersey numbers, asking which size Battier would prefer … But it doesn’t stop there. According to chron.com, the Rockets are preparing to go “all out” to sign former Denver Nuggets big man Nene. But they’re not the only team. The Warriors have also targeted Nene, along with a slew of other big men, including NBA champion Tyson Chandler, Samuel Dalembert, Marc Gasol and DeAndre Jordan. The Warriors need a post presence because Andris Biedrins just isn’t cutting it. A possible amnesty cut with the new agreement? Not according to the San Jose Mercury News who are reporting the Warriors have no intention of getting rid of Biedrins. Sorry Bay Area fans … The New York Post reported the Nets will make a strong push for Jamal Crawford, Tayshaun Prince and you guessed it, Nene. Keeping Deron Williams is obviously first priority in Nets camp, but adding a few of these guys couldn’t hurt. Talented players like playing with other talent. Maybe the Nets should stop overpaying certain people and actually sign some proven talent … We are going to have a season, but with 66 games in a shortened period of time, it may not look the same. Reports are indicating teams can look forward to back-to-back-to-backs (although never more than three times this year), and that the Finals will end about two weeks later than usual with the last possible day behind June 26. Everyone would play 48 games within their conference and 18 nonconference games, but won’t visit every city, and thankfully, the second round is expected to have some back-to-backs. That means that hopefully there won’t be an NBA playoff series seemingly lasting as long as an HBO series … We’re sure most of you saw UNLV stun No. 1-ranked North Carolina in the championship of the Las Vegas Invitational, but what many didn’t see was star player Harrison Barnes leaving the arena on crutches after the game. Barnes injured his ankle late in the first half on a loose ball near the sideline, sat out for several minutes then returned for the remainder of the game. A team spokesman told ESPN the crutches were a precautionary measure. Despite that, he was off for the entire second half, shooting like Matt Barnes instead of a future lottery pick. Jay Bilas warned everyone: This is a kid who looks unreal pulling up after one dribble. But going after two, he’s not nearly as effective. Barnes finished 6-16 from the floor, and most of those looked pretty ugly/off-balanced. How much of that was due to his ankle, we’ll find out soon. Let’s just hope this doesn’t turn into a lingering injury for Barnes, a kid we all want to see at full strength each and every night – unless you’re a Duke fan … And things are unraveling in Syracuse pretty quickly. The team is doing great, but Bernie ain’t too Fine right now. The long-time assistant coach was fired last night – effective immediately – because of growing allegations of child molestation. This story just keeps getting crazier. You have two stepbrothers accusing Fine of some bad crimes. Now you have a third person coming out – who also happens to have his own sexual misconduct allegations with a minor – and he’s accusing Fine of some inappropriate things, despite the fact that the accuser’s father is convinced he’s lying. Bobby Davis, the first to come out against Fine, also reportedly had an affair with the coach’s wife. And now a tape has surfaced between Davis and Fine’s wife, Laurie, where Laurie admits to knowing what was going on sexually between her husband and the ball boy. The question remains: should Jim Boeheim get in trouble for any of this? There will be a few folks calling for his head, given some of the parallels between this incident and the scandal at Penn State … As for college ball on the court, Missouri continued to roll, winning by 29 over Binghamton behind Kim English‘s 29 points and seven treys while Pitt won by 10 over Robert Morris and Alabama got enough from JaMychal Green (21 points and 14 rebounds) to sneak by VCU, 72-64 … We’re out like Fine.

Join The Discussion

The Syracuse stuff is just too weird. I think Boeheim WAS in the clear, but he came out with some pretty strong words towards the accusers awhile back so he might have backed the wrong horse.

Nene in NJ would be nice for him, but I don’t see it in Golden State. DeAndre Jordan in Golden State would be insane. Big guy who can run and jump forever on a team that runs and guns forever would be perfect. Except Nellie doesn’t play big me…wait, Keith Smart is coaching them now I think. Marc Gasol is the answer for them in that case.

Battier is a guy I would take on my team all day long. OKC seems to have their shit together though so he would just fit in. He needs to go to a talented team of head cases to level everyone out. Like he did in Memphis.

The Redskins won so I will wear my Jeff George jersey tomorrow.

11.28.11 at 1:45 am

Big Island

Oh crap! I forgot to update that tv show thing. So a couple of weeks ago this dude asked me to shoot a thing to try to develop a tv show. The premise is I take crap from dumpsters, build something cool and sell it. Well we shot it on Wednesday and Saturday. They asked me to be the bad guy and I said that it’s just not in me. I’m like the Hulk, try to stay cool, it takes a whole lot to piss me off, and if I do lose my shit I just go nuts. So they have another guy, who is a nice guy, but out in his own world, who is going to play the good guy. So I filmed at his shop, made fun of him and it a little bit, and then they filmed at my place. Unless I actually had a dick in each hand, one in my mouth, 2 in the pooper, and another guy playing tummy sticks with me, I couldn’t have felt any gayer. But the producer guy and the camera guy were LOVING it. Me, not so much.

First: All of that shit is staged.
Second: It’s all staged.
Third: It was pretty funny to film, but who knows how it will turn out.

So the other dude got an old beat to shit table, he was going to paint it and put glass on iHOLY SHIT A SPIDER JUST FUCKING CRAWLED ON MY FACE!!!! OK, sorry about that. Paint it, put glass on it, and voila, hopefully get $150 for it. I said it was cute, but I was going to build a table and get $1500 and he could suck it. Truth be told, I am building a table that would be $1500, but I am giving to some friends as a wedding gift. Needless to say, if I get video, I will put it up somewhere so you can see that I don’t make any of the stories up. I was also wearing an old practice jersey for the thing at my place to represent. If it gets picked up, I will shout out Beib, Chi, F&F, JAY, and maybe even balooga because it’s fun to say balooga. And if you have a catchphrase that would sound super sweet, let me know since I don’t think “DIRK BITCH!” is gonna make the cut.

11.28.11 at 3:51 am

Chicagorilla

@Big Is
Mark Jackson is coaching GState now so Nene or Jordan may actually be a good fit assuming Jackson is going to get them to anchor the defense.
Also I don’t have a catch phrase for the tv show but the shout out would be greatly appreciated lol. If I come up with something then i’ll let you know.

Then to top it all off, my hometown girl Ariel Massengale and the Lady Vols lost to Baylor and Brittney Griner. It was a good game though so i can’t complain. Brittney Griner’s touch around the basket is just crazy. I was trying to find an NBA player to compare her too but i don’t think there is a current one. The best i can come up with is Raplh Sampson.

Griner is so unique with her ability to block shots, rebound out of her area, run the floor, soft hands, very good post turnarounds shots with a high release and a soft touch around the basket, and to top it all off the girl is very athletic for someone 6’8 with a 7’4 wingspan. She’ll be even better in the NBA where it’s harder to double and triple team her. AND SHE’S ONLY A JUNIOR IN COLLEGE! wow.

Side note on Chicago HS hoops: Ariel Massengale is starting at #7Tenn and doing her thing. But her back court nemesis from HS and #2 PG in the state in 2011, Chenise Jenkins, is also starting at #18Depaul. And on top of that, Jenkins former back court mates are lighting it up all across the country.
While Whitney Young HS (former HS of the First Lady M.Obama, Quentin Richardson, Jenkins, and Marcus Jordan) has the girls game on lock in the city of Chicago, Bolingbrook (Massengales old high school) has the suburban game on lock. Bolingbrook has 8 players committed to Div 1 schools this year (most notably Morgan Tuck going to UCONN) and are looking to 4 peat as state champs. The buzz in this city is CRAZY right now for HS hoops. DIME you guys need to get on this quick.

11.28.11 at 3:57 am

QQ

The NBA is back, and I’m fucking baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

Damn, that seems like forever right there.

Enjoy the season, cats.

The Q.

11.28.11 at 4:16 am

catdaddywhack

lmao @ big island

goddamn, man. fuckin hilarious. the way you tell it and do your shit. only you can turn a damn innocent staged show and make it sound like its reality gay porn. haha

how about sporty-j shout out? since its about fucking sucking gay shit anyway. might as well give props…

11.28.11 at 4:28 am

catdaddywhack

…speaking of being ‘fucking back’

used to be drunk and now i’m whack.

enjoy the ***** season

sh!tfaced

11.28.11 at 4:41 am

alf (from melmak)

I am not celebrating the return of the NBA. The lockout should never have happened in the first place. Greed sucks.

Anyway, with that out of the way, here is a partial list of unrestricted free agents for this year. Dime, you can do better than focus on Shane Battier. He is a good guy and all but there are a lot more players out there with possibly better story lines.

I am a Jazz fan and would love to see Mike Dunleavy, Michael Redd, or Delonte West play for Utah. They have good basketball IQs, can play the 2 spot (weakest Jazz position), and would be available at the lower salary range.

Oh, and a non-basketball related (cheap) shout out from my end — watch the Duran Duran video for its single Girl Panic! It is more than nine minutes long and has super models, sex, and a super band.

11.28.11 at 5:36 am

Trey Bing Bay

They should make the first round of the playoffs best of 5 to save time.

11.28.11 at 7:01 am

First & Foremost

Or they should make the first 3 series have back to back games. If you don’t have to travel, it should be a game night.

66 games packed into what would have been 54 games won’t be a good look for the older or top heavy teams [Miami excluded]. Greg Oden would be best served to sit out yet another year. In order for a team to be great this year, their coach has to outcoach everyone else. How you use your bench to limit the wear & tear on your starters.

Oh yeah, and it sucks for fans who buy tickets in the middle of a back-to-back-to-back stretch and both teams decide to rest their starters… in March.

Pacers, 76ers, Wizards, T-Wolves, Warriors, & Kings all have a great shot of making the playoffs.

If Dirk goes down for 2 weeks, instead of being 2-5, the Mavs might end up 2-11 (3Ls with him limping into form). How will bynum holdup after the suspension?

11.28.11 at 8:30 am

DNice

Delonte West and basketball IQ should not be in the same sentence.

11.28.11 at 8:39 am

JAY

LMAO @ Big I… that spider line was hilarious!!
Didn’t I give you the heads up on that crap being staged? Lol. So funny, but it’s cool u had funny filming it. Now as long as they don’t post-edit a lisp to your voice u should be good.

@Chi
Cosign re: Griner. She’s bananas!
Has she punch anyone lately?

@Dime: “…but Bernie ain’t too Fine right now…”
^ Very creative……. :|

Battier = the best glue guy in the NBA, and maybe he has been for the last few years. He just does the little things so well, and he’s skilled. Unlike Noah.

11.28.11 at 9:06 am

alf (from melmak)

@ DNice

Even with Delonte’s bipolar disorder you have a certified basketball player who has career averages of close to 10 points, four assists, and three rebounds. Given the right team, he will be a factor.

It is the the issues outside the basketball court that is clouding the perception on him.

11.28.11 at 9:55 am

Simon

@alf,

Thanks for posting about the Duran Duran video!

11.28.11 at 10:14 am

JAY

“Or they should make the first 3 series have back to back games. If you don’t have to travel, it should be a game night.”
^ Yup. I’ve been pretty vocal about the drawn out playoff series. Sometimes they have 2 days between games when the teams don’t even travel. How stupid is that?

11.28.11 at 10:28 am

First & Foremost

@Jay – Imagine if the Knicks host the Nets in a playoff series. Do you really need a travel day? Let alone 2 of them for a subway series.

I’ve tried to shy away from calling either side greedy [at least I think I have] but trying to sneak 1 months were of games back into the schedule, just to make an extra dollar, seems pointless. True, their will be more action every night but we will still have to read about all 66 of Miami, LAL, Chi, & Boston’s games and then get 2 lines that gloss over 6 other games played that night.

Fans want baskeball but they also want quality basketball. For any minor injury that might have taken 2 days to heal, the player is now forced to play the very next night.

Back to the traveling situation, I’m surprised teams don’t try to save their bottom line and have joint flights during the playoffs. There has to be a groupon for that.

11.28.11 at 10:45 am

baloogawhales

lol u just had to name drop on Matt Barnes’ jumper

11.28.11 at 10:59 am

Sean Sweeney

Not sure how I feel about shortening the time between games in a playoff series. If they do that, we might not be able to watch every game. In the playoffs, even if its something like Chicago vs. Indiana, it’s still good ball. Instead of having two or maybe three on in a night, there might be five.

11.28.11 at 11:19 am

Big Island

JAY – A spider really did crawl down my head. I flipped out mid sentence then figured I had to type it in there. I literally took stuff out of my garage, planted it, and then found it on camera. “What a score! There is like 7 sheets of penny round tile! These are like $20 a sheet!!” Naturally, the best stuff wasn’t filmed. So they show up and want to set all of their cameras and crap inside. The producer asks if my dog is friendly. I tell him yeah, he’ll like you guys, but he is racist. The camera guy says “I’ve been bit before. You sure he won’t bite? I’m the right race?” I dismiss him with the “He’s racist, not homophobic. You’re good.” They both look at me like WTF did we just get into and just laughed their way into the house.

Catdaddy – I would totally shout out Sporty J, but the guy vanished. I think I was one of the only dudes who liked the guy.

Chi – You’re right! I forgot about Mark Jackson! Get Nene. And I’ll shout you out somehow if someone is dumb enough to say “this show is gold” and picks it up.

11.28.11 at 12:00 pm

First & Foremost

If the NBA is going to try so hard to maximize the number of games played, they should go all out and have teams play double headers. 4 games in 4 days.
Sunday @ 1 Home
Sunday @ 10 Home
Monday Travel/Rest
Tuesday @ 8 Away
Wednesday @ 10 Home
Thurday Travel/Rest
Friday @ 8 Anywhere
Saturday Rest

sometimes travel day/breaks between games are just excuses so they can stretch a series into a weekend.

if back-to-back playoff games are gonna happen, it’ll be on a weekend.

11.28.11 at 1:18 pm

JAY

@ sweeney
“Not sure how I feel about shortening the time between games in a playoff series. If they do that, we might not be able to watch every game.”

That’s exactly what Stern wants. To maximize exposure. At this point. I don’t give a damn about watching every game. Just git ‘er done.

And if my memory serves me right, playoff games used to be just like what F&F said earlier – back-to-backs and a 5 game first round series in the 80s/early 90s. From what I remember the league popularity did pretty well. There were no unusual injuries, and scoring around the league was high. The simple fact is it worked back then.
You guys think back-to-back are so hard on their bodies? Back then teams played back-to-back-to-back games in regular season. If the old schoolers could do it, then these newbies can do it too. Isn’t today’s equipment supposed to be MUCH better than the equipment from back then? From shoes, to under armour, to medicine, to training regimens…. it’s all much better. I’m pretty sure they can do it. The media makes it seem like back-to-backs are the worst things ever… but keep in mind that these guys have 2-a-day practices after games anyway. It’s not like they’re resting the next day. They are used to playing games. That’s what they do.

11.28.11 at 1:38 pm

First & Foremost

@Catdaddywhack – It would only be low scoring games if you plan on playing your starters 35+ minutes a night. If the player’s union did all of this for the ungrateful little guy, well then a season like this will be that guy’s time to shine. D’antoni will probably lose his job if A’mar’e!’s knees go out and Melo complains about playing too much. Teams that only go 8 deep because someone is in foul trouble will have a tough season. The Rockets, who don’t have that much of a dropoff when they go to their bench might have a surprising win-percentage.

A tight schedule benefits the benchwarmers because now they will get a change to play. People in Boston might get to find out what Avery Bradley’s jersey number actually is. Trevor Booker can continue to punish Kevin Love with back-to-back putbacks. Jordan Crawford can surpass Joey Crawford in popularity.

The NBA, where sprinting a marathon happens.

11.28.11 at 3:23 pm

panchitoooo

i have a catch phrase that I always use on the courts that im trying to make famous, its:
STAND RIGHT THERE!

Whenever you make someone else look silly, you tell them “STAND RIGHT THERE”

Dirk backs down an opponent and pulls back for the fadeaway as he says “STAND RIGHT THERE”

Mayweather cocks back a cheap shot right after Ortiz kisses his cheek and says “STAND RIGHT THERE”

JR Smith runs through the lane for a flying dunk and tell the guy gettting the nuts “STAND RIGHT THERE”

Tebow runs through the line and truck sticks a smaller DB “STAND RIGHT THERE”

you make a good point that shits on someone elses point on Dimemag.com “STAND RIGHT THERE”

11.28.11 at 4:37 pm

catdaddywhack

Your in a bus stop and its about to rain but the bus just drives right past and you shout… “STAND RIGHT THERE”?!

You and your girl are standing between Big Baby and a buffet table… “STAND RIGHT THERE”?!

Randy Orton is setting up for the RKO… “STAND RIGHT THERE”?!

A hot chic who’s into bukake is on top riding you like a stallion and your about to cum, just as she begins going down you still say… “STAND RIGHT THERE”?!

11.28.11 at 4:42 pm

catdaddywhack

@ First & Foremost

well i’m all for it if its about other players getting the tick they deserve.

and you know what this means if teams go past 8 deep… white players!

this might be a season worth seeing after all…

11.29.11 at 12:56 am

Chicagorilla

Stand right there might be the most annoying catch phrase i’ve ever heard and i didn’t even hear you say it. I already hate it….which means @Big Is should probably use it lol. If I hate it that much just reading it, imagine how much people will like it.

@Jay
No Brittney hasn’t baptised anymore unsuspecting ball players lol. But honestly i think its amazing that she has ONLY hit one person. Seriously, coaches bring in their goons off the bench just to piss her off. The grab, push, and cheap shot her to death trying to get her to react. Shaq wasn’t even this patient.

Speaking of Shaq, did everyone see that new show on NBAtv with all the TnT guys? I think it was called “Open Court”
It was actually pretty cool.
In one of the stories, i think it was Reggie Miller, was about how he was told to never start shit with Alvin Robertson. And everyone kinda nods. But if memory serves me correct, didn’t Shaq break Alvins jaw with a punch back when he was on Orlando and Alvin was on Detroit? He wasn’t so tough then lol.